


Let's See How Far You've Come

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Black Romance, Body Modification, Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Drone Season 2015, Implied/Referenced Character Death, It's Somehow Actually Not About Sex, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Man These Two Fight a Lot, Mentioned Dubcon, Relatively Tasteful Smut, Rivalry, These Two Are Both So Thirsty, well holy shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-02
Updated: 2015-07-02
Packaged: 2018-04-07 06:04:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4252185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Granted: the Grand Highblood has done an impressive job of whipping the sorry creature he was handed into shape.</p>
<p>Alas, Eridan has standards.</p>
<p>(At least that's the story he's sticking to.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let's See How Far You've Come

**Author's Note:**

  * For [squeezedoutofmiracles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/squeezedoutofmiracles/gifts).



> _Shit I'm sorry this is late_
> 
>  
> 
> For Jlister1997, as requested! I hope you're not too disappointed, dude.

You’re early enough to the party so you can spend plenty of time staring into your drink. It smells like punch, but this is a mixed soiree and you should never underestimate the chemical talents of venoministers. The subjuggulators have similar talents, but they’re clinging to their usual policy of showing up late to everything. The later the better, you think, because there’s one of them in particular you’re not eager to see.  
  
Honestly, the only reason you’re even at this wretched function is that Feferi threatened to shove a cuttlefish up your nose if you tried to duck your social obligations one more time. You’ve been making a point to complain about these new responsibilities to anyone who will listen, if only to rub it in their faces. Who was named the bloodline heir? That’s right: Eridan Ampora. Your ancestor has finally stopped sitting on her hands—just bet none of you oyster-sucking clambunglers saw that coming.  
  
Being smug cannot become tiring when everyone around you insists on being completely irksome.  
  
“Hey there, bro,” a low voice rumbles at your elbow. “Fancy meeting you here.”  
  
Speaking of irksome.  
  
You throw Gamzee a look that is about as politically motivated as a plate of shrimp. “I see they’ve let the riff-raff in,” you grumble. Then you very nearly do a double take. Gamzee’s uniform has always been engraved with the indigo sigil of a subjuggulator initiate—beyond that it’s all armored black hide hugged around his lanky frame like jagged teeth, baring plenty of skin to show his accumulating tattoos and gold. He’s also not wearing it.  
  
Gamzee Makara, the closest thing you have to an equal in this room, is dressed like the wait staff, frilly cravat and plate of hors d’oeuvres both in place. As you stare, he grins in delight.  
  
“Like the duds?” He follows this up by laying his warmer hand on yours. “Oh hey, don’t drink that.”  
  
Well, that answers your questions about the punch. Gamzee and his legion of idiots have spiked it. He leaves his hand atop yours. You consider slapping it back down, but you’re not sure Gamzee is worth the effort. Your eyes scan the room—you’re fairly certain that at least some of the servers in circulation aren’t disguised subjuggulators, but a number of them are fighting to keep anything like a straight face. You’ll chalk it up to the ongoing, unfathomable game of one-upmanship between the Empress and the Grand Highblood, not an actual security breach you would be duty-bound to report.  
  
Your very serious thoughts are interrupted by Gamzee attempting to feed you a toothpick of shellfish canapé. “Don’t be like that,” he scolds as you cinch your lips tight against the offering. You glare in silent affront to this indignity. “We ain’t seen each other in sweeps and sweeps. Least we could do is get some motherfucking conversation on. You ain’t talked to me none since the twelfth perigee, bro.”  
  
His hand is still locked around yours. You, calmly, upend your drink on it, which startles him off. A slight inclination of your head butts your horn into his with a ringing crack and he hisses his next “motherfuck” through his teeth.  
  
“I have absolutely no desire to speak with you,” you inform him. Gamzee’s horn gives a long, aching scrape against your own as he pushes back. You school you face bored and blank, refusing to flinch.  
  
“That so? Then what’s it that you’re wanting from me?”  
  
“Not a damn thing,” you reply.  
  
“ _Liar_ ,” Gamzee growls, and all but slams you into the wall. Behind you, the party is at its apex; the Grand Highblood’s trick has been revealed, a number of generally dignified individuals are drunk off their asses, and Feferi has seen you speaking to people. You’re done for the evening, and so shredding your claws through a fistful of Gamzee’s awful uniform as you yank him to your mouth? Politically acceptable. Gamzee almost immediately pries you open to his tongue and kisses like he’s drowning, graceless and hungry. You bite him with relish—all but purring at the taste of Makara blood—and jerk back to growl as Gamzee digs his claws in below your fins.  
  
“If you rip my uniform,” you tell him plainly, “I will kill everyone you love.”  
  
It’s halfway a joke between you.  
  
Gamzee snorts and successfully gets a mouthful of earfin by feinting to the left. His fangs dig in and you warble a moan, tearing vengeful strips down that cheap server’s shirt. Fabric droops away from Gamzee’s much more engaging chest as he chews on the bundle of sensitive nerves in your earfin, fingers kneading at your gills. You hurry to shove the scraps of Gamzee’s shirt down and get your hands on the scarred flesh underneath. New tattoos are immediately apparent and you stroke your fingers along them in a mix of awe and envy. The wet pressure of Gamzee’s mouth pulls away.  
  
“Mm. You like ‘em? I was thinking of you when I got that one.” At your testy glare, he just grins wider. “Means I took the most kills for the tenth sweep running. Pretty bitchtits, huh?”  
  
“I know what it means,” you snap, giving Gamzee a curt shove to send him reeling away from the wall. Gamzee’s surprise turns into fluid, effortless movement, all but dancing aside while you collapse into the couch, loosening your jacket collar. Gamzee cocks his head and moves alarmingly fast to join you, stealing a brief, almost tender kiss.  
  
“That cause you got one of your own under there?” His fingertips skate along the front of your own uniform—much more civilized than the subjuggulator ideal of fashion. The deep amethyst fabric is as opalescent as fish scales, starched and pressed to be without a single crease. Gamzee traces along the insignia of your station—orphaner. “Or just cause you _wish_ you did, bro? Cause I sure could use some competition and I ain’t got me none yet.” Gamzee gives you a little shove to press you flat. “Why don’t you go ahead and take that off for me? I can’t ever figure out all you fucking fishes’ buttons and clasps.”  
  
“Defeated by a fucking zipper,” you say dryly, “Clearly I am in the presence of greatness.” Still, you reach for your collar with a sigh, popping open the buttons one by one to get to the zipper beneath it. Gamzee leans back, content to watch as you shoulder off the jacket with a sigh, and the dress shirt beneath it—whereupon Gamzee’s forearm catches you in the chest and shoves you down for inspection. Gamzee takes his time looking over the tattoos that you both, as highbloods, are permitted to scrawl over your bodies in permanent testament to your accomplishments.  
  
In no time at all, he’s smirking up.  
  
“Aw, you _still_ ain’t get put in charge of your first mission yet?”  
  
No, and that is because your ancestor is a control freak with a poor disposition, not through any fault of yours. Or, let’s be clear, any success of Gamzee’s, because this amalgamation of idiocies is in no way superior to you.  
  
Except by the tattoos, which is what matters for this round so you grit your teeth, grab Gamzee by the horns, and haul him into the snapping of your jaws. Gamzee sinks claws into your bare chest. You wrestle each other down into the upholstery. Given that you cannot win anything tonight, you find yourself on your back with Gamzee leering over you, purring. You drive a knee into his stomach halfheartedly, but it doesn’t take Gamzee much longer to get his hand down your pants, at which point you stop caring about virtually everything else.  
  
\----  
  
One of the essential details about this rivalry is just that—you’re rivals, not quadrants. You see each other maybe once in four sweeps if you’re lucky, and going a few rounds in the closet before your ancestors drag you off is hardly anything worth the paperwork of declaring blackrom. Besides, Gamzee has the attention span of a flea. You not only don’t care whether he’s screwing his way through the subjuggulator fleet, you expect it. He’s got nothing better to do and you’ve never met a troll less possessed of self-control.  
  
Granted: the Grand Highblood has done an impressive job of whipping the sorry creature he was handed into shape. You have to admire his work. The first time you met Gamzee after conscription, the difference had been shocking. Gone was drug-hazed, stumblingly slow troll who’d exasperated you, and in his place was understated wit, sharp reflexes, and a talent for manipulation.  
  
Gamzee has always had that talent, lest anyone forget; just now he’s aware of it. No more ‘take care of Karkat’ at three am. Now he’d get off on it; have that nasty gleam in his eye that leaves you seething because you know you’re being toyed with. Yours is a rivalry for the ages. At this point it’s just a matter of who snaps and kills the other first, but thankfully, you have long stretches of time to forget his face.  
  
You’re too busy for anything like a real quadrant, anyway. Your ancestor has finally assigned you a full command. You know flawlessness is mandatory, if only because if the Epheme goes back to treating you like a glorified wad of kelp, you’re just going to have to gut yourself out of shame.  
  
It’s a blur of activity once the fighting starts and for all the studying and speculation, there’s no longer room in your head for anything but cold math. You can’t think about how well you’re doing. There’s no _time_. What tactics aren’t reflexive at this point are discarded, and you don’t think of victory. You think of survival.  
  
You have to be told secondhand, afterwards, that you captained your station with unflagging courage, that the enemy rallied twice and you drove them back to their knees with clinical efficiency. Apparently you bark orders like a drill sergeant. You did not lose a single squadron.  
  
Next thing you know, though, Fef is giving you an official commendation.  
  
She’s offering the sunstar, and you won’t find any higher honor before you take a fleet.  
  
Your ancestor makes graceless attempts to take credit. You smile with ash still stuck to you under your dress uniform, and once you have time for the royal tattooist, you know exactly where you want it.  
  
“There,” you say, gesturing in the mirror. “Right between my shoulder blades.” The sunstar isn’t a huge decoration, but you like the idea of a centerpiece. The grim-faced troll with the needle ritualistically offers you anesthetic—you turn it down with a sneer as you’re meant to—and then you’re on the table, being sketched on, still singed and bruised from the battle. You ache all over. Your head tilts back, and your lungs sigh when the first kick of pain sinks into your spine. It’ll hurt. The pain is what makes it worth it. You’ll get the first command tattoo straight after—  
  
Oh, that makes you laugh.  
  
Gamzee is going to be _disappointed_.  
  
Another bite from the needle and another. You’re slowly but surely lighting on fire and your thoughts aren’t consumed by the honor, or by Fef’s esteem or your ancestor’s smugness. It’s your stupid chum-guzzling rival and how pissed off he’ll be when he realizes he lost. No sunstar on him. Everything his skin wears is lesser. You’re giddy from it, and picturing his defeat sends a warm wave of lust washing through your blood.  
  
Your bulge is out by the time you’re midway through, which is a perfectly normal reflex to this much pain. Your body wants blackrom to go with the damage, and with Gamzee in your head, holding out just makes it better. You’re insensate and growling by the end, the tattooist all backing away rapidly while you sit up and stretch your sore skin. Hurts. You relish the pain, and then take yourself in hand. You’re feral, you’re _commended_ , and you are fucking happy as you caress your bulge like some undersea relic of immeasurable worth. You spoil its tremors and squirming until it has soaked your hands, wound your nook into wet throbbing, and you can’t see straight from the war of pleasure and agony. You want, almost unbearably, to have sex.  
  
You fall back into the tattooing table, draw all the air you can into your lungs, and moan hungrily for the last few strokes. In the end, you barely shove yourself at a bucket in time before you snap like cheap elastic.  
  
This is what Gamzee is good for, more than anything else, you see? He’s a convenient fantasy for when you want to get off and don’t have the patience for actual courting.  
  
He’s going to be so _furious_. You shudder as your bulge takes interest again.  
  
The servant comes in before you can indulge yourself. Before, these assholes would downright be trying to sneak looks into your bucket, but now he keeps his eyes averted as he calls out to you.  
  
You’re beginning to earn respect.  
  
Also, your ancestor wants you. You scowl sourly at the wall and heave yourself up.  
  
\----  
  
No one would ever describe your patience as limitless. You’ve been waiting for a chance to show yourself off and rub Gamzee’s face in the sunstar (which came out very nicely, thank you very much; the way your muscles move it is a downright wonder and the colors are explosive in the midst of your creamy skin). You have waited long enough. Why then, must the arrival continue being delayed for border territory skirmishes of no real consequence? He should have landed weeks ago. Richer still; when he actually lands on Alternia proper you don’t even _hear_ about it for a good twenty days.  
  
He doesn’t come and find you. Let’s repeat that: Gamzee literally fucks around doing god knows what and can’t be bothered with you.  
  
You go to the training field like a mature adult, where you proceed to wipe the floor with every one of the trolls your ancestor has (grudgingly) shifted under your authority. You also break three weapons in the process and wind up roaring at the staff sergeant. His face spells out petrified terror. You decide to go sulk somewhere less populous, like a troll who would prefer not to massacre his lieutenants.  
  
Your ancestor finds you, because this is the sort of evening you are having.  
  
Your most diplomatic smile feels tight around the edges, but you’re always prepared to be lectured over the particular arrangement of dust motes in the southern colonies, of course; hear, hear. Your enthusiasm must be showing. She prefaces her profound wit by snapping about your sloppy public presentation. You straighten your spine, claw your palms, and try to think about something other than how irritated you are. This is perhaps why, by the time her head cocks, you’re already looking behind you. You heard the shouting first.  
  
There is a contained stampede of trolls heading your way, bottlenecked by the stairs into a solid mass.  
  
Subjuggulator black, wide, maniac grins cutting through their faces like bad stitching, weapons out. They are chanting what sounds like the word “raid” over and over again. You have no idea what this is. You don’t question the urge to fumble for your weapons.  
  
That sinking feeling? That is you realizing you left all of your armaments on the training field.  
  
Your hands continue to grope uselessly for a cuirass, a butter knife, _something_ , but when someone grabs the back of your collar, you snap your fist into his eye hard enough to topple him. He goes down like a sack of unhappy barnacles. You run, then, but not fast enough. You’re driven into some sitting area, subjuggulators filtering in after you to seal your exit off. One in particular, a woman with butterfly makeup, bounds up with her clubs drawn. You dodge two strikes, and nip through her defenses to educate her that her place is _on the ground_ , like any other fucking indigoblood. You show her your teeth and she shows you her throat.  
  
Clubs offend you. They’re basically no better than swinging a stick. No matter; that subjuggulator unpredictability is easy enough to thread a pattern through. You’re winning, superior numbers or not. They can’t even touch you now that you have the butterfly’s weapons.  
  
So when one of them manages to sneak a hit through your defense at last, you stumble more with surprise than actual pain. All it takes is a good look at his face and not a single other troll exists on Alternia. He’s _late_.  
  
Your thoughts haze, you rumble off some wordless challenge and Gamzee’s grin quirks higher, wider. He beckons, and you come at him.  
  
Nearly three weeks, and no word. You hammer him back half a dozen paces, inch by inch, until his eyes widen because you’ve got him almost to the wall. You drive one of your stolen clubs up into his chin. You hate him. His head snaps back, you go for his ribs—he hooks and arm around you and rolls you to the ground with such ease you’re not sure how you got there.  
  
His friends titter in the background and Gamzee actually smirks back over at them while pulling your collar open, but oh, that was his mistake.  
  
Seadwellers, for the record, spend a lot of time being horizontal in the water. Grappling with you on your back is sort of a losing proposition.  
  
Gamzee splutters a sound of strangled surprise when you buck. You hear genuine upset when you kick him into the wall. He gets up, but he’s not fast enough and you know landdwellers don’t have the same capacity for upward motion. You pin him easily, tilt his chin up, and flare your fins with authority. “Raid’s over,” you growl. “Call them off.”  
  
Gamzee just laughs, sweat soaking his hair from however long you have been fighting each other. Like you do not have a steel killing weapon crushed to his windpipe, he runs a hand through your hair. “Ain’t you heard? We’re celebrating.”  
  
“Celebrate elsewhere,” you hiss, with aggression and victory thrumming through your veins. You drag fangs over his jaw, threatening to seek his pulse. He shudders under you. Claws rake your scalp, find your horns. You can smell his lust.  
  
“As you like,” Gamzee rumbles, voice dropping to that lower, thrumming tone to mock you, “ _Prince Ampora_.” He shrugs a shoulder at his people, and that’s all they need to quell themselves. What easy confidence he radiates among these fools. With his leadership, as he stands, they are all attention. Gamzee nearly makes it to the door before your thinkpan catches up to the fact that this fight is far from over. You catch him by one horn and snarl into his ear. You can smell battle on his skin. Your gills prickle.  
  
“Oh not you; you’re not going _anywhere_. I’m not done with you yet.”  
  
Gamzee groans, and you are aware, only viscerally, that his troops are amused. Irrelevant, because his arm swings out to slam the door shut and cut you off from them. Impact comes so hard the hinges shriek. The lock maybe just gave. There is a dent in imperial property, the door is damaged— _how dare he_ —and you yank him around and slam him up against the wall one-handed, the other driving down his pants to find what you’ve already been smelling. He’s all but fully unsheathed and he jolts like there’s electricity in your fingers when you grip him and stroke.  
  
You’re not really in any better state, but when he reached to explore, you smack the hand back down with your club and smirk at his wince.  
  
“Not even gonna—ah—unwrap your present?” Gamzee feels the need to ask you. You sneer. “Sure you can—ghhn—afford not to? With all that action you get?” His hand is in your hair again, stroking like this is red. “That huge stick being shoved up your nook and all?”  
  
You kick his legs out from under him. His knees buckle satisfyingly, and you both hit the floor with a crash, since he’s dragging you down. You swear, your grip on him lost to brace yourself and he rubs his bulge up against yours eagerly. You embarrass yourself with a moan. He smirks darkly, grinding up harder. “Gonna ruin your clothes if you don’t get that ass naked.”  
  
It’s casual wear. Just something loose and simple for when you’re on the training field, but it’s still _yours_ , damn him. You’re not a barbarian. Gamzee’s eyes rake over your toned skin and he licks his lips, grinds on you harder as you fumble the clothes off. “Got yourself another star, did you?”  
  
You’d nearly forgotten.  
  
Your cant your hips down and reward him for his attention slow and too hard. His breath falls out of him. The sunstar still hides at your back, and that knowledge makes you grin. You’re pushing at him firm enough that you can feel the pulse in his length. It’s picking up. Flattering. You think you’d enjoy having your nook taken from behind tonight. “Still only have three, Lord Makara?”  
  
“Could always cut this one off.” His claws trace over the latest black star emblazoned on the softness below your gills. “Sew it onto me. I’d look pretty motherfucking classy, huh?”  
  
There’s something in his tone. He circles the area with his claws, but he doesn’t look pissed. He holds still. You make short work of the clinging, glossy black leather of his uniform, fold it open, and stare at him. You see the medpac and tear it off before he can protest and there it is.  
  
You stare, aghast, and then crack your palm across his face. He’s laughing. He is outright laughing, and his claws slice up your back and helpless shirt alike as you splutter, incoherent with fury, because _Gamzee Makara_ has a sunstar of his own now, newly minted on his collarbone and you want to commit murder. “Got word,” he snarls, rending the shirt from you bit by bit and then sliding his claws down your ass and thighs, cutting the cloth there too, staining it bloody, stripping you bare. “That you had a little surprise for me and I thought we can’t have that. Can’t have the seadwelling lot getting ahead of themselves.’”  
  
“ _You_ ,” you manage to say, and that is all, because your thoughts are quickly shorting out into territorial aggression.  
  
“Wasn’t too hard,” Gamzee tells you casually, half-lidded as he sits up, still rocking his bulge on yours. His hands go between the both of your legs to undo his zipper. “No idea why you’re getting all caught up on it, Eridan. Took me, what, a couple of days? Got the pretty little Empress to pat me on my head too.” He leers at you, and you can see, deep in his eyes, how high the fires of his rage have gone. “ _You’re nothing motherfucking special_.”  
  
You howl with anger as you slam him down and he fights back, roaring. Together, you go tumbling across the floor, claws gouging, teeth snapping at the frantic line of pulse just slightly out of reach, fists and knees and elbows. You try to claw the damn tattoo off of him. He bites through your earfin. You dislocate his jaw with your fist, both of you trumpeting in primitive, uncontestable rage, and then you are inside of him somehow. So tight, he’s always so tight—you give into speeding pleasure until you ache, and he’s kissing you. Dislocated jaw and all.  
  
You drive deeper into his nook and his eyes go wide, growl tilting vulnerable and helpless, grinding back on you. That’s right—he likes it deep, doesn’t he? Bite him. Bite him hard as you can. His head bows for it, his claws find your gills, and you cry out in utter frustration, pound at his nook until his eyes have rolled up and he’s just twitching under you, barely keeping his release under control. You drag the bucket out and slam it down and he jerks to life, thrashes and collapses into your shoulder while he comes. You don’t pull out of him until he’s wrung to dry, exhausted shudders, then release yourself while his mouth tugs plaintively at the bloody edge of your earfin. The bucket winds up looking like a warzone. Your bulges both retreat in satisfaction.  
  
He’s not really conscious by the time you let him back down onto the floor. You expect you’ll hear about whatever campaign he was on to earn the sunstar soon. His eyes are smudged with exhaustion and he’s not moving. Must have run himself ragged trying to catch up. Damned idiot.  
  
He didn’t even see _yours_.  
  
You sigh and smooth your hair back and get up to see if anything can be done with your clothes. Like any self-respecting rival, you don’t intend to be here when he wakes up.  
  
\----  
  
That’s the way of things, you suppose; in the end, your rival is a moron and a lunatic and he matches you. You both accumulate tattoos, and as you grow, there’s new carapace and skin to have decorated with the marks of victory. You come of age, and have your fins clipped for the first time—newly minted silver chains are threaded through them. When you’re getting your first horn carving two sweeps later—your first war under your belt now, and this is the prize for survival; your teeth clamped down on cloth and metal straps around your limbs so you can’t lash out—he’s doing the same some several light years away. When Fef names you her tactical advisor, Gamzee has already inherited rights to his convoluted church of madmen. Your gills are dyed to match your post and they weep poison for weeks, but the pain is worth it. In the mirror, you are at last an adult.  
  
Then there’s the Battle of Brendiz, and the whole planet weeps.  
  
When you are done sobbing over your ancestor’s corpse like a wriggler ( _eight weeks_ you’re useless, and Fef doesn’t even yell at you for it) and come out of the mourning chambers to deliver the death speech, Gamzee is there. His dark skin is obvious in the crowd of pale-faced seadwellers. No word that he was coming. He doesn’t stick around past you startling over sight of him in white—subjuggulator mourning garb—but he is there.  
  
He’s gone before you can find him.  
  
Then come four grueling, painful sweeps of bickering among the inner circle. You get bored with assassins. You get entirely fed up with your own allies treating you like you are too young to have the right to rule. You learn to kill your enemies quietly and without ceremony. This is a chore, not an honor.  
  
You learn what your almost-kismesis looks like when he is on his knees before you, looking up solemn-faced to offer himself and his laughsassins to your command. The Grand Highblood nods to you at a formal dinner afterwards and the entire room goes dead silent. You nod back like an equal, and are petrified. You only really give Gamzee one mission, and the bloodbath it results in seems to dissuade others.  
  
You’re coroneted head of the Ampora line before an audience of millions, several trillion more attending by video feed, knelt in front of the woman you have been in love with since you were six. Her eyes are fully tyrian now, and you can’t remember when that happened. She was such a late bloomer. So worried that no one would respect a child Empress. She’s radiant.  
  
“Rise,” she says, and her voice could be no louder than a whisper; it would still sound like thunder to you, “Warlord Infernus Dreadeye, first of your line. May you rule a thousand sweeps.”  
  
You rise.  
  
Her hands meet you and she kisses you on both fins, letting the endless array of silver and gold and jewels sewn through your fins tangle for a moment that feels much more tender than an Empress should allow. Her eyes are wet. She smiles.  
  
You greet people, you socialize, you permit your new subjects to pay obeisance to you before their heads explode and then when you can finally, _finally_ stumble back to your rooms, all you want to do is sleep. An hour ago, you wanted to get drunk and _then_ sleep, but you have given up this pipe dream. All that matters now is your pillow and how much Warlord Infernus Dreadeye can drool on it.  
  
You should be really pissed that after so many attempts on your life, your guards have still allowed a dangerous laughsassin warrior into your chambers unchaperoned, but you’re too damn tired. Gamzee gets up when you come in, looking just as weary as you. You half-smile at him. “I win,” you say, an edge in your voice like it’s going to break and he takes your face into his hands and puts his mouth against your ear.  
  
“I hate you,” he says.  
  
His voice is bitter, he smells like home, and he’s never said those words to you before in your life, not outside of dreaming.  
  
He kisses your cheek and says it again. Calls you Eridan. You’re not moving. Your hands dangle at your sides and your eyes are shut tightly. He takes your hand, pulls you along and you just go with it because you’re too tired to fight, but not too tired to want. One by one, he plucks the rings from your fingers and lets them roll to the floor. He undresses you slowly, fingers stroking inside your nook as he does—unwinds your belts, peels off your jacket, your boots, your trousers, your underwear. With utter care, one-handed, he tugs each link of chain from your exhausted fins. He leaves your circlet where it is once you’re bare, takes your lips in his teeth, and pulls his fingers from you before you can come again.  
  
He fucks you until you open your eyes again, until you scream, until the burn and sweat and push of his body is the only thing keeping you alive. It’s not face paint anymore, you realize far too late (you’re so tired). It’s his skin. It doesn’t smear no matter how much you kiss him. He’s been tattooed with this mask forever, this particular nightmare face, and you have no idea what that means. When you lick his blood from your claws and arch from his bulge, he says it once more—“hate you, Eridan, my black one”—and despite how well he’s emptied your shameglobes, your orgasm strikes hard enough that you pass out.  
  
You dream.  
  
You can tell, amidst the wreckage of grubcorn and candy, that you’ve just spent the night gossiping and dissecting romcom plots. You hadn’t suspected. You’d already known.  
  
You’d known from the way he talked, because there was adoration in his voice and every word was already defeat and despair. “He’ll find someone,” Karkat had said towards the end of the night. “He’s a fucking idiot, but, you know, not _completely_ without merit. He’s impossible not to pity. Not Tavros, though.”  
  
“No,” you’d murmured, trying not to look like you were staring. A mutant. An auto-cull. Someone who could never be with the person he was pale for. Your throat had closed in a painful rasp. “Not Tavros.”  
  
When you wake, Gamzee is still passed out beside you, an arm around your waist like he’s worried you’ll fall out of the concupiscent platform.  
  
\----  
  
You fill out the paperwork. He laughs at you for it, calls you clown’s fish, doesn’t say anything so tender as what he said the night before, but all the paperwork on his end is signed almost the minute you send it over, so mostly he just looks like an idiot. Not to mention, you’ve figured out that his ears aren’t tattooed. They blush, and that’s more than entertaining enough.  
  
\----  
  
What’s more to tell? You lead. You _rule_ , well and truly, make your subjects fall in line and work towards the glory of the Empire for you. One carving in your horns becomes several more. You have gold in your horns now too, rings that can never be removed and show your Empress’s favor. You are respected and feared and you get to the point where you don’t mope any longer, just order Gamzee to haul ass to your current end of the galaxy because you are damn well not going to waste away for want of hatesex. He is surprisingly accommodating. This is possibly because by the time you break, he’s already wild for it. Ha, all of his subjects are too terrified of you to risk fucking him.  
  
He’s coroneted too. Just like you, it’s too early. Just like you, he thrives.  
  
When you die, there’s a smoking hole through your guts and you’re pretty sure someone else just stuffed a spear into your shoulder—that is definitely overkill, fish-for-brains—and the thoughts you sink under with are surprisingly coherent. Two regrets and a surety:  
  
You’re going to miss that shithead clown.  
  
\----  
  
“Shhhh,” Gamzee murmurs when your eyes open. His hand is big and cool against your cheek. You can tell he’s using voodoo on you; your thoughts are shimmering around the edges. There’s blood on his mouth.  
  
There’s blood everywhere, actually. You shift up, try to reach. Your body won’t respond and your attempt to protest is a wordless groan. Gamzee swears, presses you back down with alarming gentleness.  
  
Are you on the floor? What is that troll doing over you? Are they—are they going to try to sew you shut? You don’t want them to. You have opinions about allowing subjuggulators to put their hands inside your stomach. Gamzee pins your shoulders flat.  
  
“Shh. You got fucked up pretty bad, Eridan. Ain’t needing to get to moving around yet.”  
  
You’re a little surprised when your throat actually produces a sound. “…How bad?”  
  
Gamzee just strokes your cheek, which tells you a lot, actually.  
  
“Gonna be okay,” he tells you, tone treacherously soft. “You were still breathing when we found you, so you’ll hold out.” He cradles your cheek, petting at the fins he has so often terrorized with his teeth. His voice dips, drier, enough to actually make you think he might not be lying, “Ain’t got no motherfucking clue how it is you were still breathing, on account of that no other troll would be.”  
  
“Seadwellers,” you mutter, “We’re tougher than you belly-crawling fucks.”  
  
His hand still and Gamzee gives you this smile that’s got a little bit of pain around the edges. “Nah, bro, pretty sure it’s just you. Seen plenty with fins succumb to less.”  
  
You try to pat his hand. He growls at you for trying to move. It’s not like you got anywhere close to succeeding. You try to ask about the state of your forces; you think you sent them away in time. Your tongue won’t let you manage more than a single word. “Thanks,” is what you choose.  
  
Gamzee’s eyes seem to darken. “Ain’t gonna be soft on you long,” he promises, voice silken as it spills into your ears, makes you shudder your way down into nothingness. “Just for right now. Gotta get my rival back on his feet, and then…”  
  
\----  
  
There are _crutches_.  
  
There are horrorterror bedamned crutches and in the mirror, you look like a limping wreck. You’re not happy about either of those things, and you’re especially unhappy that Gamzee insists on taking you into subjuggulator custody since your own people _still_ can’t be trusted not to make attempts on your life when convenient. You know, it used to be absolutely precious, them being so psychotically ambitious—but right now swallowing food is a trial. The worst part of this is that Gamzee is withholding sex. If you’re going to be kidnapped by your kismesis and his psychotic clown army, the least that could happen is some tension-charged pailing, but alas.  
  
The most action you’re getting are the occasional pinch and ongoing verbal harassment. You tell him, in detail, what you’re going to do to him when your legs feel less like stilts. This gets you his usual leer, but you’re forced to rely on _conversation_ to pass the time. It’s a wonder you don’t go mad.  
  
There’s one evening when you’re kind of through needling each other, though—you’re sprawled in a pile of suspicious-smelling cushions and Gamzee is in the chair next to you, reading through reports while you pass one of the few palatable Faygo vintages back and forth between the two of you. Your head is cloudy from drink and painkillers. When Gamzee murmurs a question to you, you look up slowly and hum to make him repeat it.  
  
“Did you always hate me?” He asks. The curiosity looks genuine on the big, broad predatory face he’s grown into. He wears interest like a wriggler. You almost smile.  
  
“I grew into it.” His mouth makes a strange line at that. You nudge him with the Faygo bottle. “I’m sorry for it,” Gamzee says.  
  
It takes you a moment to realize what he’s talking about. Once you do, your throat tries to glue itself shut.  
  
You’re not sure which part he’s specifically referring to: the thing he asked you to do, or the way he came after you when it was done, out of his pan with rage and grief. It’s an old history, well-fossilized since neither of you ever spoke about it. You could have fought him off, you know. Back then, Gamzee was inexperienced in the art of hurting anyone, and you could have slit his throat, but you didn’t. You were raw from Feferi’s rejection still and the tears on his cheeks stayed your bullets.  
  
In retrospect, that was really very stupid of you. He could have killed you. You think he probably wanted to, but couldn’t really figure out how, so he pailed you instead, sobbing how he would never forgive the blood on your hands. You remember the helpless, sick sense of relief that someone still wanted to touch you. You remember thinking he deserved it too, to hurt like you did.  
  
_Will you take care of Karkat for me?_  
  
Oh, there was more, too—how Gamzee would have to get close to do it, but you had your Crosshairs. It could be tidy. It needed to happen before Ascension. Were you busy this week—but you just remember how he phrased it. Gamzee made it sound so easy.  
  
Given a week more, it was his clubs smashing your nose in and his hitching scream resonating through the walls of your hive, “I WILL MOTHERFUCKING **END** YOU, CLADE-KILLER!”  
  
Maybe you were a little black for him by then too. You remember laughing.  
  
“Do you regret it?”  
  
Gamzee pauses, pen halfway to the paper. He doesn’t quite look at you, but you can see his shoulders cinch tighter. “…Should have done it my motherfucking self.”  
  
“The question stands,” you point out, unimpressed, and nudge him with the bottle again. He snatches it with a grimace and drains an impressive amount in one go. You’re not entirely sad to see it go. Your tongue is getting looser by the minute. “You were pale with him—“  
  
“Wasn’t,” Gamzee blurts, and you feel perfectly justified to talk right over him.  
  
“—and the drones would have killed all of us when they found him.” Gamzee’s head whips towards you, eyes flashing, and you briefly consider that you’ve said too much. But no; you’re invincible. You lean closer to him. “You made the same choice anyone else would have. Do you regret it?”  
  
Gamzee is quiet for a moment, and then his voice comes out a low, warning growl, “You’ll wanna be careful what comes out of your mouth next, bro.”  
  
“I have a giant hole in my guts and I need mechanical organs that I can’t even take a shit without,” you feel it fair to point out. “Forgive me if I don’t cower in terror over your bad mood.” You’re being glared at. You shrug and reach for the bottle. Sullen, Gamzee withholds it and you scowl up at him as you snap, “You know, you weren’t the only one with feelings for him, okay?”  
  
This does make Gamzee freeze. His gaze searches your face for as long as you’ll let him (not long before you’re busying yourself rearranging cushions, annoyed that you felt the need to make that information known). “What, really?” He finally says, which is stunningly eloquent.  
  
“After Fef,” you confirm in a mutter.  
  
“And he--?”  
  
“No,” you sigh, and shoot him a sour look. “No, he did not. It was always you. So will you answer the goddamn question instead of troubling yourself with my delicate emotional state?”  
  
“I’m sorry,” Gamzee says instead, apparently just to be infuriating. Then he goes, “Yeah.”  
  
You swallow. Your stomach feels hollow and heavy. This time when you reach for the bottle, he hands it over. “…Yeah?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
You drain the rest of the bottle fast enough for your head to spin. The burn in your stomach begins to feel like you are about to put holes in some of those nice new organs your mechanics whipped up for you. You question, somewhat belatedly, whether you’re allowed to mix drink with your painkillers. You decide stupidity should come in multiples. “Good,” you say afterwards, wiping your mouth. You feel sick. Your mouth opens and you’re almost sure you can’t get the words out after keeping the secret for so long, but you finally manage to cough then up.  
  
“Good. He’s not dead.”  
  
There’s no sound, exactly, but you are aware that Gamzee just went stock still, rigid in his seat. You don’t wait for him to ask, just spit the words out quick as you can, before you come to your senses.  
  
Oh, your reluctance isn’t because Karkat’s safety is in danger at this point. Hardly. But you know what? You’re not a desperate wriggler anymore. Hate shouldn't be kept on a fishhook.  You might even care more about your kismesis’s utterly hopeless idea of happiness more than your own; how farcical is that?  
  
“I smuggled him through Ascension,” you say, dumping the empty bottle to the side with a clatter. “It was more luck than skill, believe me. He went off to go hide in the Alternian wilds and made a bunch of feral friends. Last I heard he was rescuing auto-culls near the Arctic Borders. I don’t know his location,” you say this sharply as you hear Gamzee draw in a breath. “And he hasn’t gotten in contact for a while. But he’s alive.” You look up at Gamzee. He’s staring ahead sightlessly. You don’t see it, because it’s falling on the wrong side, but a tear spills off his chin. The paperwork is instantly stained.  
  
“I couldn’t do it,” you admit, almost imploring. “He told me to do it. You know how Kar was—he wanted to do it to protect all of us too, but I couldn’t have lived with myself.” You chew your lip a moment, and then add, “And I knew you wouldn’t have been able to either.”  
  
There’s a choked laugh. “I did, though.” Gamzee buries his face in his hands and you watch his shoulders shake silently. His voice is hoarse, and it cracks. “ _I_ lived just fine.” Silence yawns.  
  
Yes, but how many times did he go out looking for the corpse? You counted, because he’d always come to take the failure out on you. You didn’t do as good against his voodoos as you’d expected to. He tore through your thinkpan. You wonder if he knows how well he did at avoiding you and your hive during the Ascension march, and how much the sopor took from his mind.  
  
You sink back down against the pile without saying any of that. “I’m sorry too,” you say. You’re both quiet. You discover, with a bellyful of iron and courage, that you aren’t interested in decorum. “So. Still hate me?”  
  
The laugh surprises you, and the way it is so easy to join in makes you numb with relief. Gamzee’s eyes are bloodshot and wet when crouches down from of the chair to kiss you. “With all my fucking spade,” he says, and gives your hair this nasty little tug.  
  
\----  
  
The first time you fuck since your brush with death starts slow, starts with him mapping your skin under his teeth and your bulge twisting in his fist. He likes your scars. He makes them bleed again, ignoring how tender the area is in favor of making you thrash and swear. The sight of his bulge when he gets it out has you making this embarrassingly needy noise and your kissing is a study in invasion tactics. Both tongue and bulge stuffs you full to trembling. His hips slide against yours slowly, and you can feel him savoring you with his pulse, the slur of moans, the clumsiness of his tongue as he seeks to devour you. You gasp for breath. Tighter than you thought it would be. Been so long. Too long. Too good.  
  
You know you beg, and he thrusts for you, rocks your hips up and pounds at them, skin sticking while your nerves go haywire with pleasure. Heat bursts up your spine over and over and you can’t keep it from building, from going too far, until you’re taut and clenching your teeth and ragged under him. Your name fills the air on his moan as he watches you lose your mind. He fucks your nook hard until you’re only aware of the sea of pleasure, the force of his bulge in you, and eventually, the bucket you so desperately need. You double over so he’s the only thing holding you up, crying out, aware that he’s thrusting while you try to release. You thrash. He pins you, goes harder, no more control at all. When you scream in anger, he slams in, and he puts a good two pulses of slurry into your nook before it’s for the bucket and you’re just shaking, wet, and clenching on it, turning over with no care for your injuries at all, tackling him down into the sheets, rolling, teeth against him, no more softness, no more need for gentle handling, by god; you loathe this troll to _drowning_.  
  
It’s his turn to bear you and you have his voice lifting through the halls for it, for you, your touch, your cruelty. You watch his face go slack with need, you watch his body writhe for the press of yours, you watch his sex devour you like starvation. After that, it’s not possible to tell who is in who. It’s a fight. A slow, tender, painful fight and by the end of it, you will _not_ be walking tomorrow. You will not be walking away at all. Your chest aches with anger and adoration for the wild-haired king sleeping beside you. Both arms around you now. You tug on one, curious, and he squeezes you tight. Huh.  
  
You swallow and when you curl into your kismesis, you realize that once more, you’ve come to a draw.  
  
\----  
  
“For the last time, we are not here to have sex.”  
  
Gamzee is such a fucking asshole now that you’re not on his ship anymore. Fef is better, if only slightly—yes, she’s giving you easy missions to start with, but you’re earning her faith. Your people are even behaving, relieved to have your direct command back. But Gamzee, no. Your opinions on his self-control are all utterly correct.  
  
You’d think he’s never gone more than a week without sex in his _life_ , and you’re pretty sure he’s contemplating dry-humping you in the middle of this hallway if you don’t capitulate to his libido. His hands are making it very hard to remember what exactly you’re supposed to be doing. You fumble with what you dearly hope is the right doorknob. Gamzee purrs hungrily behind you, sliding his palms inside your thighs and teasing his way up. You chirp without meaning to, and then glare over your shoulder.  
  
“Sure got a nice wet kind of feeling around here, though.” He teases you so his hand just barely brushes over your nook. It is, admittedly, wet. But that’s his fault, not yours.  
  
“Urgently so,” you tell him, sour. “Fine. Congratulations. I’m still not fucking you.” He chuckles behind you, clearly thinking he’s won. You get the door open with him groping your crotch intently. He’s not going to appreciate this fact in about ten seconds. You grin.  
  
Gamzee’s hands, for the record, vanish almost instantly. There is deathly, choked silence behind you.  
  
“Gamzee,” you say, as your guest rises to his feet, wide-eyed. There’s this feeling like you’re going to laugh. “Let me introduce you two.”  
  
_He_ looks like nothing else exists. You can see in the way he stumbles that gravity is gone, and you can all but see the little diamonds in his eyes, spilling from open palms, reaching up. You look back at your kismesis, who, in all his oversized, elite murderer glory, has a hand over his mouth and terror in his eyes.  
  
Gamzee manages a garbled half-growl your way that promises retribution. This tender moment, surely, would have been preferred with crotch-groping. But excuse you, was that your fault? You accept no responsibility.  
  
Karkat crashes into Gamzee at a full run, instantly bundled up against his chest. Their arms go around each other. The sound your kismesis makes reminds you of nothing so much as a wall tumbling down. Karkat’s fists snatch up bigger handfuls of Gamzee’s uniform and shake a little bit. Gamzee’s tears smell of salt.  
  
“You got even bigger, little bro,” you hear Gamzee choking and Karkat’s is just raw and honest the way no one else could ever manage.  
  
“ _I missed you_.”  
  
You? You’ve ruled your people, fought a king, and saved the life of a mutant freak.  
  
This is still the first time that you’ve ever felt like a hero. There is a wild, uncontestable joy to it when you turn your back and once more walk the way you came.


End file.
